Visual Filters and Transitions Reference

09/04/2012

11 minutes to read

In this article

This topic documents a feature of Visual Filters and Transitions, which is deprecated as of Windows Internet Explorer 9.

As of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, you can apply multimedia-style effects to your Web pages using visual filters and transitions. You can apply visual filters and transitions to standard HTML controls, such as text containers, images, and other windowless objects. Transitions are time-varying filters that create a transition from one visual state to another. By combining filters and transitions with basic scripting, you can create visually engaging and interactive documents.

Internet Explorer 5.5 and later supports a rich variety of optimized filters. Click the following button to see a demonstration of many of these filters and how to use them.

The links in the following sections provide access to the object model exposed by the visual filters and transitions.

Procedural Surfaces Reference

Procedural surfaces are colored surfaces that display between the content of an object and the object's background. Procedural surfaces define each pixel's RGB color and alpha values dynamically. Only the procedure used to compute the surface is stored in memory. The content of an object with a procedural surface applied is not affected by the procedural surface.

Procedural Surfaces

Displays an image within the boundaries of the object and between the object background and content, with options to clip or resize the image. When loading a Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image, tranparency from zero to 100 percent is supported.

Displays a color gradient between the object's background and content.

Static Filters Reference

Though all filters and transitions are technically filters, the following filters statically change the way the content of an object displays. The Compositor filter is implemented as a transition, but gives only a static output.

Displays new content of the object as a logical color combination of the new and original content. The color and alpha values of each version of the content are evaluated to determine the final color on the output image.

Converts the color content of the object based on an Image Color Management (ICM) profile. This enables improved display of specific content, or simulated display for hardware devices, such as printers or monitors.